roller hockey struggles to match dazzling debut

Still pockets of passion, but participation continues to drop

When high school roller hockey was approved as a San Diego Section sport a dozen years ago, it was touted as the next big thing. Instead, roller hockey has experienced a participation downturn.

“It has not become the next big thing,” said Joe Noris, a former San Diego Mariner and NHL player who runs Skate San Diego in National City.

According to a Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association report last year, roller hockey participation declined 65 percent nationally between 2000 and 2010. The reasons are many, but rink availability appears to top the list in San Diego.

“The sport really boomed at one point and it peaked,” said Steve Baldwin, a pioneer in the sport who coaches West Hills, the only remaining East County high school that fields a roller hockey team.

Baldwin said rinks initially started popping up all over the country. He described it almost as a fad, one that supporters weren’t able to sustain.

Noris said the rinks began disappearing in San Diego when owners discovered the real estate could be used in more profitable ways.

“The pockets of growth in San Diego have gone away because the rinks have gone away,” he said.

San Diego’s East County saw three rink closures in the past six years and the collapse of several high school teams. The North County lost a facility in Poway after Sportsplex USA converted its roller hockey rink into an arena soccer field in 2006.

That leaves Escondido Sports Center and a crumbling Skate San Diego to host high school games. There’s also an outdoor rink on the campus of Castle Park, which is unusable in inclement weather.

Pat Martinez of Escondido Sports Center said the Poway corridor used to enjoy large numbers of participation — nearly every school in the district could field two or three teams. But after the Sportsplex location closed, school numbers dropped.

Baldwin said there’s a lot of discussion in the roller hockey world about regrowing the sport’s base.

“It’s a big issue that’s really scaring the daylights out of a lot of roller hockey people,” he said.

Martinez said there is still promise for additional growth, especially for kids ages 7-12 in inland North County areas.

Orange and Los Angeles counties, where there are more facilities, enjoy more participation than San Diego. Some attribute that to the presence of NHL teams, the Anaheim Ducks and the L.A. Kings. Baldwin said the Ducks have been great supporters of the sport and have been instrumental in building rinks.

Conversely, losing the most recent reincarnation of the Gulls in 2006 didn’t help here.

“Where there’s pro hockey it does well,” Baldwin said. “Where there’s no pro hockey it doesn’t do as well. It’s just a natural correlation there.”

Former Scripps Ranch coach Don Cerone, who died in a single-car accident last August, and Sweetwater Union High School District Superintendent Ed Brand, were leading proponents for the inclusion of roller hockey by the California Interscholastic Federation. Before San Diego became the only section in the state to sanction it in 2000, the sport operated as a club sport in the San Diego County Roller Hockey Conference.